The people who sailed the tall-masted boats from the yacht club at the foot of Bay Street 80 or so years ago were called Victoria Yacht Club members.

Sheesh, old Queen Victoria must have been a very special queen. Not only did that yacht club carry her name but also one of Hamilton's finest parks and one of the city's streets and, of course, her downtown statue is still a Hamilton landmark.

Back then, times were very tough for us old North End folks. We didn't much care for the Victoria Yacht Club members. They lived such different lives from us. They were rich, and we automatically disliked rich people. Jealous, I guess.

Another thing that bothered the sports fans among us was the fact that the VYCs (that's what we called them back then) could field teams with uniforms for almost every sport.

They were especially good at rugby. Football as we know it now, hadn't been invented yet.

They wore proper uniforms, for goodness sake, with large VYC letters on the sweaters. The North End teams we cheered for wore their regular work clothes during games.

Even when the VYCs played against out-of-town teams such as Dundas, Stoney Creek or Beaches, we North Enders cheered for the visitors.

Watching the scrum during rugby games, we'd see the VYC players, with their leather helmets and padded shoulders, grinning at opposing players whose ears and noses were bloodied by the grinding contact of each play.

We had very sophisticated cheers back then:

One, two, three, four, who are we for?

Hamilton Tigers, rah, rah, rah.

Five, six, seven, eight, who do we appreciate?

Hamilton Tigers, rah, rah, rah.

Ted Wilcox is a lifetime Hamiltonian with a passion for sports, community and, most of all, family.